


Perfect Little Snowflake

by WhatEvenAmI



Series: Beware the Killer Rabbits [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Age Play, Avengers Tower, Bed-Wetting, Blood, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Bear - Freeform, Crying, Daddy Kink, Emotional Manipulation, Fear, Gen, Guilt, Hand Feeding, Hydra (Marvel), Insomnia, Manipulation, Memory Loss, Mental Instability, Nightmares, Non-Sexual Age Play, Pain, Painkillers, Panic Attacks, Paranoia, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Steve, Rape, Regression, Restraints, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Self-Mutilation, Sexual Abuse, Stuffed Toys, Therapy, Torture, Trust Issues, Vomiting, alexander pierce should have died slower
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-11
Updated: 2015-03-31
Packaged: 2018-03-17 11:10:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3527060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhatEvenAmI/pseuds/WhatEvenAmI
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With the Winter Soldier's trial approaching, Maria Hill works diligently to put together Bucky's defense.</p><p>Examining Pierce's abuse of the Soldier is more sickening than she'd been prepared for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lauralot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lauralot/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Blaming the Gun](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3246026) by [Lauralot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lauralot/pseuds/Lauralot). 



> This is based off the series 'Alexander Pierce should have died slower'.

_"I'm sorry, I—I can be better,_ _I'll make up for it, I_ —"

_"Do you remember how we talked about this?"_

_"I..."_

_"It's fine if you don't. No one is going to punish you."_

_Silence._

_"James—"_

_"I don't remember."_

_"That's okay. James, you don't owe anyone anything. You do not have to perform sexual acts for anyone, for any reason."_

_"...I remember now. I just...got confused."_

_"And do you feel less confused now?"_

_"I—"_

_"Yes?"_

_"I don't, I'm sorry, I just, I don't fucking know, I don't fucking know what you WANT!"_

Sudden and violent sobbing rings harshly in the quiet of the office.

Maria presses the  _stop_ button on the tape player with a  _click,_  and the audio winds down. Carefully, she removes the tape from the player and slides it back into the dull metal box, labeled "July 2014". She peels a red sticker and presses it to that tape for future reference; it will not provide sufficient defense material, so she won't bother to return to it later on.

Those little red stickers dot most of the tapes in the lockbox. Here and there is the odd yellow dot—those, Maria will consider—but most of the "July" tapes consist of disconsolate rambling, long silences, and strings of apologies. It's been difficult to listen to, and it definitely won't be any easier the second time around.

The second time around. She feels a little lightheaded upon remembering that she'll have to listen to some of these  _again._

Admittedly, she wasn't prepared for this, though Cornelius and Miriam each gave her a brief word of caution while stacking the lockboxes on her desk this morning.

Miriam had been primarily concerned for Bucky. 

"I want to be clear," she'd said, her dark eyes holding Maria's gaze intently, "You  _have_  informed James that you intend to play these tapes at the trial? You have his permission for this?" _  
_

"I did tell him, Dr. Worth." Maria had pushed down the nagging feeling that had surfaced in her conscience. The day she'd gone to request Bucky's permission, he'd been jittery and tense, visibly anxious to leave the room. He'd become upset when she brought up Rumlow and he was unable to continue the discussion. Had she gotten him on a better day, she isn't at all sure he would still have agreed.

But she  _needs_  these tapes. They provide brutally candid insight and Maria found them physically painful to hear. That in-your-face level of disturbing, the cringe-inducing descriptions, those will be key. Having Cornelius or Miriam recite general accounts of the therapy sessions wouldn't have a fraction of that impact. Right now, it's her job to know what will carry the most weight for the jury.

It goes beyond the obligations of her job, though. She really does want to keep Bucky out of prison—to prevent that terrified and battered man from being further victimized by this situation over which he's had absolutely no control—and so she's going to have to present that side of him to the public. Right now all they've seen is the menacing shadow, the cold-blooded killer. Maria needs to tear that image apart.

"And he agreed? Fully informed that the trial will most likely be public, _and_ broadcast on national television?"

"I told him that would most likely be the case." Miriam had continued to look at her suspiciously, and Maria added, "He's spent decades being lied to and humiliated. I'm aware of that, and I would never want to deceive him or deprive him of the right to make his own choices, Dr. Worth. I only want to put together a solid defense to prove his innocence beyond doubt. As of right now he has a certain image, of which you're aware. It's essential for us to banish that image completely and entirely."

Miriam's gaze had softened and she'd looked herself again, kind and compassionate. Maria could easily see how she was successful in working with children. "Well," she'd said, "this will certainly accomplish that."

Cornelius had spoken to her later, after Miriam had had to leave for work.

"I'm sure you're aware of this, but I just wanted to be certain. These tapes contain...there are some detailed descriptions of torture and sexual abuse that..." he fiddled with his glasses, searching for the right words.

"I've spoken at length with Captain Rogers and Tony Stark, and I'm well aware of what Pierce was capable of." Though she  _hadn't_ been aware, not about Pierce, not until less than a year ago. She still found it deeply unsettling how many of those people she'd seen on a daily basis. People with whom she'd worked and shared meals, joked and complained, some people she'd have said she trusted. And all that time...

Dwelling on it wouldn't get her anywhere now. "We're still planning on meeting tomorrow?"

"I'll give you a call if anything changes. I've already prepared some notes." Glasses back in place, Cornelius picked up his briefcase and turned to leave. Pausing in the doorway, he had glanced back over his shoulder. "I didn't mean to sound condescending, Agent Hill. I only wanted to be sure you were prepared."

And she'd thought she had been.

The first tape hadn't been hard, merely a frustrating waste of her time. Bucky hadn't said a word. Cornelius had introduced himself to Bucky and Steve and invited Bucky to give a return introduction. He'd been greeted with silence, and the rest of that tape had consisted of Cornelius and Steve attempting, unsuccessfully, to prompt Bucky to speak. That continued for the next few recordings.

She was considering calling one of the Worths to request some notes on these tapes when she finally found what she'd been waiting for. Cornelius had greeted Bucky in his usual manner, followed by the familiar sounds of him settling down into a chair. But then there was Bucky's voice, a shaky near-whisper, sheer terror conveyed quite clearly in the one word, "Where..."

She sat forward, waiting.

"Do you remember what Steve told you earlier?" Cornelius asked.

 _"Where?"_ Bucky's voice edged into panic.

"The Avengers have been called away from the Tower for a mission. The details are classified, so all I know is that they're predicting to return by tomorrow."

There was a pause, and then a horrible wheezing sound began, increasing in volume with each passing second. Bucky was hyperventilating. Cornelius was trying to talk to him, but for the first time Bucky's voice was clear, running right over the doctor's.

"No—I can't—I'm sorry I'm sorry I can't—" Every few words another breath choked him off. Maria could hear him slipping into the tone she knew well by now, the uncannily accurate approximation of a young child's voice. She's spent a fair amount of time with Bucky, it being necessary to prepare him for the court procedures, and still she can't help being a little disturbed by that voice and all it represents.

"I, I want, I want, I want my Daddy, I want my Daddy— _"_

Maria was reaching for the yellow stickers before she'd even stopped the tape.

Bucky was sobbing and wheezing and he kept repeating the same few phrases, over and over. "I want my Daddy, I want my Daddy, don't let them don't let them _don't let them—PLEASE! I'M SORRY _—"__ His voice swerved into a scream.

Maria had flinched and jabbed the "stop" button. Then she sat for a minute before reaching for the next recording.

In the following tapes it had all come out—how Pierce had taken advantage of the Winter Soldier's complete and unquestioning compliance to fulfill his own seemingly limitless range of sexual desires. How he'd tortured Bucky for failing to perform exactly as he liked, for minor "infractions" that interfered with sexual play, or just because he felt like wielding his own power.

Not that Bucky saw it that way. He blamed himself for each and every maltreatment. He blamed himself because he should have known what he'd done wrong.

Pierce had further fostered obedience by rewarding Bucky with rare gestures of the tenderness so very lacking in the Soldier's life, gentle touches and words of praise doled out just sparingly enough to make Bucky crave Daddy's affection above anything else in the world. He'd do anything to feel that again. Anything at all.

Those tapes had made Maria feel slightly ill, remembering years upon years of listening to Pierce speak, thinking of every time she'd been in the same room with the man. All that time, he'd been slipping off and—how often had he come in to work, having risen that morning from a bed he'd shared with Bucky? She'd shaken hands with the man upon first meeting him, and he'd had a habit of touching her arm to get her attention. Those hands had traced over Bucky's cheek while he sat vulnerable and tractable, had rained blows upon his submissive form, and slithered down to touch—

She'd never before experienced the literal phenomenon of feeling her skin crawl.

Each of those tapes are yellow-dotted for review, as is the one in which Cornelius first introduced Miriam to Bucky, proposing the idea that when he slipped into his child mindset she'd be able to help him in ways that he might overlook. Maria has to give credit to Miriam; she doesn't know how much the woman was prepared beforehand, but she herself had been well informed of the situation. She'd still been disconcerted upon first seeing the man cross-legged on the floor, hiding his face behind his hands whenever she looked at him and clutching a teddy bear to his chest.

In the thirteenth tape Miriam had first heard the legendary Winter Soldier speaking in his lisping imitation of a five-year-old as he recounted being kicked to the floor and made to stay still there for hours following a reluctance to perform oral sex, an incident for which he seemed to blame himself entirely. He then proceeded to apologize again and again because crying is what very bad boys do. He apparently couldn't stop the crying, because the apologies went on and on. Miriam took the whole thing completely in stride, speaking to him as she would an actual child.

Even if Maria had more experience with kids, she wouldn't have been able to do that for Bucky. She'd never say it in front of him, but she's felt uncomfortable every time she's seen him in his childish mindset. It isn't his fault. It's just too eerie, too spot-on accurate, and she can all too easily imagine the way he looked at Pierce after seeing how he looks at Steve now.

_("Sometimes he said I was perfect...his perfect little snowflake. When I was good. But I'm bad all the time now...I don't wanna make Daddy sad. I didn't mean to. I really wanna make him happy but he's sad, a lot, 'cause of me...I just don't know how to be good anymore. I don't even know why Daddy lets me stay with him."_

_"And have you ever asked him?"_

_"I did ask him and it just made him sad! That's all I even do!")_

She's worked for SHIELD long enough to become familiar with so very many different levels of torture and deception, but what kind of sick mind would enable a person to think this up and carry it out? And yet that sick mind was right alongside her for years, undetected behind a kind and smiling face. This time last year she'd still been speaking to Pierce on a semi-regular basis. She had  _trusted_ him, everyone had. She hadn't even thought about it. It had seemed to be a given that he was trustworthy and capable and benevolent. He'd kept that act going for years and she'd believed it.

And she can't get that out of her head as she hears these tapes replaying in her mind. Bucky saying it's his own fault if he's exhausted because good boys don't wet the bed, that he was going to help Daddy save the world, that the Avengers are really nice and no one hits him with a belt, not even when he cries.

And for all the time she spent listening to that, she can't even play a fair amount of it in the courtroom. Intermittent periods of panic and frantic apologies make most of the earlier tapes useless, and the talk jumps rapidly from one topic to the next.

There is one, however, from the September box, that she's already considered playing for the trial. It will demonstrate for the crowd Sergeant Barnes' feelings in regards to the Winter Soldier's actions, hopefully establishing them as two separate entities. It contains a segment in which Bucky had seemed to be convinced that his blood had been taken from him by some higher power as a judgment for the Winter Soldier's actions, stating flat-out that he should be dead.

That, combined with Bucky's plainly mangled mental state, will make it apparent that he is in fact a victim in all of this. She can start there.

That tape is marked with a post-it note marked _misplaced_ _guilt & suffering evident mental disorientation. Discuss w/ CW._

But she can't be sure that's what she'll choose yet. There's still a lot she hasn't heard. So many more of these tapes.

Maria glares at the yet-unopened lockboxes and rises to leave, having sat at this desk well into the night. She isn't really sure she'd have slept well after today anyway.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maria's plan for the defense comes together while she listens to an unscheduled therapy session. 
> 
> She's finding that the recordings never lose their horrifying potency.

One of the October tapes is labeled _unscheduled session—10/24/2014_.

"All right, James," Cornelius's voice begins this one, "So we spoke on the phone with Steve this morning, and we were just hoping to...maybe you could start by telling us, in your own words, what happened last night." 

"I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry." It's the child's voice again, barely above a whisper. Apologies comprise a fair percentage of Bucky's vocabulary. He has a few of of them for every sentence he speaks, or so it seems. 

"Bucky, I told you, we're not mad at you." There's Steve's voice. She's heard it in a few of the previous sessions, apparently when Bucky was feeling particularly afraid.

"We're here to help you, James," Cornelius reminds him, "And to check up on you and make sure you're okay. We also want to determine if we should adjust the dosage of your medication. And we can't do any of that until we understand why what happened, happened."

"I...I had knives."

God. This can't end well.

"I'm sorry, I know, I broke the rules. I'll never ever _ever_ do it again, I didn't _know_ —" He's speaking more rapidly now, his breathing picking up.

"You knew there were rules about knives. But you had them in your room. Can you tell us why?" asks Miriam. Her tone isn't accusing, despite the phrasing of the question.

"I know, I'm sorry, I just—just felt scared." Bucky's voice shakes. "A lot of the time."

"What were you scared of?"

"I don't even know! Just—scared. I wanted to have them just in case."

"Steve told us there were a fair amount of knives, James—he said there were eleven others. Is that right?" Cornelius again.

"Uh-huh."

"And I'm guessing you didn't take them all at once."

"No."

"So you've been feeling this way, and hiding the knives, for a while now. But you didn't tell anyone."

Silence.

"That isn't safe, James. You know that you can call us at any time, if you need to? You won't be in trouble, no matter what. We just need to be able to help you _before_ things get dangerous like that."

"And," Miriam adds, "If you can't get to a phone, or if you can't reach us right that minute, you can always go to whoever's nearby. They'll get you in touch with one of us, and they'll keep you safe until we can talk to you. Okay? Will you do that?"

"I will, I _promise_. But I don't think I'll ever touch knives again...that was really scary an'...bad..." Maria can hear him trying to keep his voice from breaking.

"Can you tell us what happened?" Miriam prompts.

"Me an' Daddy needed tape. I was looking in the drawer and I found the knife. I don't...I picked it up, but I didn't really mean to...I don't even know why I did. Then holding it made me really confused, an' I was...I thought..."

"Yes?"

"I—I thought I was him, the—the Soldier," Bucky whispers, "an' Daddy came in an' I—I was...he could kinda remember he wasn't supposed to be the Soldier, but not—an' all that made him scared. The only thing he could think was, um...the mission."

God, Bucky. She'd had no idea he'd done this. It's probably better if the jury doesn't hear about him stashing knives in his room. She keeps playing the tape, though. She may not be able to use it directly, but she's got some ideas for the structure of the defense coming together in her head. She pulls a sheet of paper from her desk drawer, still listening.

"Daddy came over to help me, but the Soldier didn't know that. He didn't wanna but he thought he had to. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to, I thought I had to."

"You thought you had to do what?" Miriam asks him.

"I—I held—I held up the knife, on Daddy's neck. I'm  _sorry,_ " he says again, "Daddy, I am, I'm really—"

"I know, Bucky. I'm not mad at you. I don't blame you, not for anything." There's Steve again.

"But I do, though! It was  _stupid_  of me to do that. They even  _said_ it might make that happen but I didn't think it really  _would_." He sniffles. "I'm so _dumb._ "

"No, you're not. I understand why you did it. It's okay—"

"It _isn't_ okay!" Maria's never heard Bucky raise his voice to Steve, or to anyone else, as a child. He's gasping a little, tone rising in pitch. "It was really  _bad._ If I ever k—if I ever hurt you I'd hate myself _forever_ and it almost really happened and  _it's all my fault!_ "

"Bucky, hey—"

"And you were gonna just  _let_ me! I couldn't—I couldn't _live_ —"

" _Bucky. Listen_. Take a breath, okay?" Bucky obeys, and Maria is grateful. She's been squeezing her hands together. She pauses the tape to provide a little respite and to think.

She briefly considers fitting this segment into the trial, but it'd be very risky. The fact of the matter is, Bucky hid knives in his room and he held one to Captain America's throat. And, damn it, Steve walked right over and allowed him to. Maria feels a little shaken by both of those facts, and the prosecution would absolutely use them against the defense.

And, convincing as it may have been of Bucky's remorse, he's going to have to hear whatever she presents to the jury. She's already accepted that that's going to be rough, and it won't do Bucky any good if she allows her sympathy to interfere with her job. Still, making him relive this would be a cruelty that outweighs any potential benefit. She starts the tape player again.

"Listen. If you think I was completely unprepared—I knew you might get confused or have problems. I knew that you—you might—you were scared and confused. I was ready for that, and I wasn't going to let it happen."

"You have before," Bucky protests. "On the helicarrier? You were gonna—"

"That's—Bucky, I promise I wouldn't have let anything bad happen last night. I don't want you to be scared thinking about that. I only wanted to see if I could help you before things got worse. And that worked, right?"

A pause, then Bucky mumbles, "But...they're right, I shouldn't've had knives. I didn't think anything would really happen. I messed up so bad. That's all I even know how to do. Mess up everything." _  
_

"Bucky."

"I'm sorry."

Miriam speaks again. "It's good that you know where you made a mistake, James. But I think what you need to do now is focus on this—now you know it was a mistake, so you should work on not making those same mistakes again. For you, I think that means you talk to someone when you're thinking in ways that might be dangerous, and you don't touch knives. And, James, if you have more of them, then you need to be honest and tell Steve where they are. Do you have any more weapons?"

"Uh-uh."

"All right. If you make a mistake and take one again, you need to find someone and tell them. You won't be in trouble if you do. It's just important that you're honest about these things."

"'Kay."

"Then I think we can just think of this as a mistake. And, James? It was a very serious one, but people _do_ make mistakes. Everyone slips up now and again, and when they do, it can be forgiven. And sometimes the hardest part about making mistakes is forgiving yourself. I want you to try to forgive yourself, okay?"

Silence.

"It seems like you're still mad at yourself."

"Yeah."

"It's normal to feel that way, but beating yourself up isn't going to help anything. And, James, you deserve to be forgiven for your mistakes."

A long silence, followed by a sniffle.

Her heart aches. She hadn't known that was anything more than a figure of speech, but her heart has literally squeezed during some of the recordings. And her stomach. And her hands.

"There's one thing I was concerned about, that I think it's important to check in on," Cornelius says, "Steve mentioned that you said you felt like someone was watching you. Can you tell us about that?"

"JARVIS asked if Daddy needed help...the Soldier didn't know the Tower's got a voice in the...everywhere."

"What did you think when you heard JARVIS?"

"Got scared...thought it was HYDRA, saying they were watching...I didn't wanna hurt Daddy, and I wasn't, and then I thought that was them telling me I had to do what they want."

"Have you felt like they were watching you at any other time?"

"This tape probably won't provide the best material for the defense." The same voice, from the doorway this time, startles her. She clicks the "pause" button.

"It's certainly not one I would play for the jury. It _has_ given me a few concepts that may work in Bucky's favor." Cornelius raises an eyebrow. "Here, he described feeling that HYDRA was watching him. That there was no way out of following their orders. He voiced similar fears in other recordings. One of which I'd actually like to discuss today."

Cornelius sits across from her and slides a notebook onto her desk. The glasses are off now; he's constantly fiddling with them, pushing them down and back up on his nose or twisting them between his fingers. She wonders if he knows he does it, if he's ever broken a pair that way. "Concept-wise, what are you thinking?"

She opens the tape player and labels the tape inside with a red dot. Then she slides over the September box to retrieve the tape she's marked with a post-it. "Bucky's feelings of guilt, for one thing. There's the guilt over everything the Winter Soldier did, which I think will speak for itself. But there's also the lingering guilt he feels over perceived transgressions and failings, which demonstrates the level of abuse he suffered in his previous circumstances. That will engender empathy for Bucky and turn the anger toward his abusers. Because there  _is_ a lot of anger over HYDRA's undetected growth. Anyone who worked for SHIELD has heard their fair share of accusations over that, but it seems that a lot of these people have turned the Winter Soldier into the face of HYDRA. That should be Pierce, and that's the impression I'm hoping to leave."

Cornelius is nodding in agreement. "I'm hoping that my testimony will do to Pierce's image what he did to James's, and then some." Hard anger has crept into his voice. Maria's startled at first, and a bit uncomfortable; she's never heard him to be anything but objective and professional. Then she remembers the image Pierce once had in her own eyes. She thinks of the tapes and nods in agreement.

"I'll be sure to keep that in mind. On a related note to the topics of guilt and abuse, it will need to be made clear that the Winter Soldier and Sergeant Barnes are not one and the same. Specifically, that HYDRA made the Soldier what he was. In fact, I think that needs to be established first to amplify the impact of the rest of the testimony. I plan to start the defense with the restraining chair and then go right into this. They'll see the chair and then they'll hear exactly what it did to Bucky's mind."

Cornelius has sat relaxed in his seat, the glasses still spinning between his fingers. When she begins fast-forwarding the tape, he slides them back on and leans closer. 

"Your blood hasn't stopped, James. You'd be dead if it had." Recognition flickers on his face.

"They stopped it because I should be dead."

She lets it play through to his rapid-fire stream of apologies, his insistence that HYDRA can hear them.

"You'll be the one explaining Bucky's diagnoses and his symptoms, and I'd like to follow that up with this." She's writing as she speaks, trying to map out a vague schedule for the defense. They can iron out the details later. "It clearly demonstrates his feelings of guilt. His descriptions of his nightmares emphasize an unwillingness to do harm. Then there's the paranoia, the fear of retribution, all immediately following the demonstration of the chair. Once I choose another excerpt, Miriam—"

"Agent Hill, I have to interrupt you here." He hesitates. "Miriam is reluctant to testify regarding these therapy sessions. She feels it's vital that James views her as a safe person, and that it would be harmful to him to hear her publicly discussing these tapes. I'd be willing to talk through my portion and hers, if that would be possible. Miriam believes that James would be less likely to view that as a betrayal."

Maria carefully keeps her face composed; she already has vague plans worked out and she really doesn't need this complication.  But Miriam's proven to be very protective of Bucky, and a dispute with the Worths will do more harm than good. "If you're willing to cover all of the therapy tapes, that can work," she concedes.

They spend the next couple hours comparing notes and planning out what should be mentioned, and when he finally dons his jacket to leave, she's filled with the satisfaction of having accomplished a tangible plan. She's also quite possibly feeling a little rejuvenated from two hours not spent listening to gut-wrenching therapy audiotapes detailing skin laceration, clinging to a stuffed bunny through a painful and frightening rape, and licking ice cream from Pierce's fingers.

That bunny has come up again and again in the tapes, and she can't help thinking there may be some connection to his teddy bear.

Tomorrow morning, she'll be visiting the Tower, where she'll suggest to Bucky that the bear should probably not accompany him to court. She isn't sure what it is with him and the stuffed toy, but even in his adult mindset, she seldom sees him without it. It's always clutched in his hand or squeezed under his arm or, when he's nervous, pressed up against his face. He seems to rely on it for security and comfort. Tomorrow she's going to tell him he'll likely be facing this nightmare of a trial without it.

She pushes aside the October lockbox in favor of planning exactly how she's going to break that news.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maria's been putting off talking to Rumlow. A recollection from Bucky persuades her to pay him a visit.
> 
> Predictably, she finds herself sorely tempted to administer pain.

"You don't have to say a word if you'd rather not." Maria assures Bucky.

She's in one of the kitchens of the Tower, seated at a shiny, polished table that is, in her opinion, far too big and elaborate for the purpose it serves. She feels the same way about the sandwich she's currently ignoring. When she'd arrived, everyone had been eating lunch, and Pepper had insisted on providing a meal for her as well. Now, everyone but Bucky and Steve has finished eating and left the table. Bucky's still picking at his sandwich; he struggles to finish full-sized meals. Sometimes food still makes him sick.

And now she knows that he's afraid to eat because it may make him vomit. During his time with Pierce, he'd been hand-fed "treats" and had to struggle to keep them down, unable to refuse the unwanted "presents" Daddy offered. Occasionally, though, he would lose that fight, and then he'd be punished.

On a couple occasions Pierce had made him lap his vomit back up from the floor, telling him that little boys have to clean up their messes. Maria's own stomach twists every time she imagines that. It takes a conscious effort not to shove her plate away at the thought. How he manages eating at all after enduring that, she has no idea.

She's been going over exactly how he should behave while in court. Since he's opted out of testifying, she's basically coaching him on keeping quiet and appearing presentable. She knows he couldn't possibly make himself detail his abuse before a jury, let alone manage answers to the accusations from the prosecution.

He seems to hate himself badly enough that he might have wound up agreeing with them. 

She's advised him to remain as calm and quiet as he possibly can, during the court proceedings and afterward. There will be reporters; the media, she knows, is a pack of sharks, and when they get hold of the faintest trace of blood, there's a frenzy. Once court lets out, Bucky will most likely be swarmed with would-be interviewers clamoring for a statement. Maria is sure he will not want to speak to them, and seeing as she doesn't trust any of them not to twist his words, she thinks it's best if he does not.

"You'll have the best security we can get you, but reporters are almost never respectful at times like this. They'll try to crowd past the guards. They'll likely be shouting questions, but you're under no obligation to answer any of them."

She's also a little wary of the possibility that, if Bucky feels threatened or overwhelmed, the Winter Soldier could emerge, exacting vengeance on the reporters. Though it would probably be deserved, it would be rather unhelpful to Bucky's case. "In fact, most people find it best not to acknowledge them. In that situation, I'd advise you to look straight ahead and keep walking. Ignore them completely and let security deal with it."

"Okay," Bucky agrees, jabbing holes in his sandwich with a shiny metal finger.

"As a side note, I recommend you do something with your hair. I think it would look too informal loose, and that will make a bad impression. It may also reinforce the image of the Soldier that the public already sees. It's a very distinctive feature. If you'd rather not cut it, I'd suggest you tie it back."

She notes that as she says it, he automatically tilts his head slightly, letting his hair hide his face. He quickly recovers and looks back up at her, nodding in agreement, but that little motion makes her regret her next words in advance. "And there's something else I think you should consider."

"Yeah?" He takes a small bite of his sandwich, working a little too hard at swallowing the food. She's thought very carefully about phrasing this in just the right way, easing him into the idea. She wants to let it come to him, rather than springing it on him. "Regarding public appearances, I've been thinking over the potential reactions that people might have to seeing the bear. " It's seated on his lap; his hands go to it and grip tightly, sandwich abandoned.

Steve notices, squeezing Bucky's shoulder. "You don't have to do anything you don't want to. If you need to—"

Bucky interrupts. "You think I should leave him here."  _Him_ and not  _it_ , even though he's supposedly fully an adult at the moment. "All right, then."

He's trying to sound nonchalant, but he's begun to tremble, his arms wrapped tightly around the bear, squeezing it to his stomach. She's reminded, once again, of him clinging to the bunny through a brutal rape; once again, her heart aches. For the first time, she turns her attention to the sandwich in order to spare Bucky from seeing any pity on her face.

Steve rests a hand on his shoulder. "You all right, Buck?" he murmurs. Eyes closed, Bucky nods. 

"We can take a break from discussing this, if you'd like a few minutes," Maria offers. Bucky nods again, squeezing the bear tighter. He's rocking slightly in his chair. Pretending not to notice, Maria begins eating, focusing maybe just a little too much on her sandwich.

For a while, no one speaks. Steve runs a hand slowly up and down Bucky's back. Bucky abandons his attempts at eating and strokes the bear's head with his flesh hand, the other still clutching it tightly against himself.

This really is a good sandwich, though. She hadn't realized she was hungry.

She's about halfway through her lunch when Bucky breaks the silence, muttering that he's okay and that she can continue. 

"There's only one more thing, really." She tries to phrase it as kindly as possible, "If you can help it, then it would be best to remain in a fully adult state of mind during court." His younger mindset is simply too accurate; he's more easily overwhelmed and far less self-conscious as a child. When upset, he often does things such as curl into a ball or cover his face with his hands or hide behind Steve.

Few of these behaviors would pass unnoticed by those in the courtroom, and there are certain to be several cameras focused on Bucky at any given time, reporters gauging his reaction to every word. She almost adds this, then decides not to remind him.

He's staring down at the table, hair hiding his face once again. "Yeah, I figured," he says, "Though it's really not like anything anyone says can get any  _worse_  after they hear about...and anyway, too many people have already seen...fucking Rumlow and—"

"Hold on," Maria interrupts him, "You're saying that Rumlow has witnessed your regressed mindset?" She's attentive now, and Steve's gone completely still. From the looks of things, he didn't know about this either.

"Once, yeah. When something went wrong on a mission." Bucky's still staring fixedly at the same point on the table. 

 _I'll file that under 'things it would have been really helpful to know about a whole lot earlier',_ Maria thinks but does not say. "Can you explain that to me, briefly?"

"Um, there was...I don't know when this was. We were in a church, in the bell tower. Rumlow and Rollins and me. There was a priest, reading in Latin, and he said...one of the commands. That's what fucked it up. And I couldn't get back to being the Soldier, so..." he doesn't look upset now, just deep in thought.

 _Steve_ looks upset. His hand once again rests on Bucky's shoulder. Bucky surprises them both by smirking.

"Bet they weren't expecting _that_  when they signed up for HYDRA." He gives a humorless laugh and looks back up at her. "Are you going to use this?"

"If it's all right with you, then yes."

"Go ahead." He still hasn't loosened his hold on the bear. "Like I said, nothing can make it any worse." 

*

Admittedly, she's been putting off speaking with Rumlow.

He was another one who'd slipped right under her nose, another deception that still has her unsettled. There's also the fact that he'd planned to testify against Bucky until he'd realized that it would be in his own favor to support the defense.

And then he'd had the nerve to call her and bargain for legal representation.

For years Brock Rumlow had used and abused the Soldier right along with the rest of those bastards, sat back and watched while his mind was wiped blank, and apparently witnessed the appearance of the helpless and terrified five-year-old that Pierce was using for his own twisted desires. And after all that, he'd been prepared to throw Bucky under the bus to cover his own worthless ass. He so very deeply disgusts her.

But from the sound of it, he really can help her case.

She goes straight from the Tower to the medical facility where he's currently being held, receiving treatment for his scorched and battered body. Maria hopes it still hurts; she hopes it hurts him for years to come. She hopes he never lives another second free of pain; Bucky's certainly endured his fair share of it, and Rumlow's had a part in the murder and torture of countless others besides.

His face looks somewhat human—apparently his treatments are working well—but she notes that he doesn't rise from his bed when she walks in, and that tells her everything she needs to know about the state of his body. He looks vulnerable and weak, propped up on his pillows in a hospital gown. He hates vulnerability, hates weakness, and the fact that he's done nothing to correct his own tells her exactly how much it must pain him to move.

"I was wondering when I'd see you." He doesn't seem to have much difficulty speaking, at any rate, but his words are languid and a little too airy. They must have him on some pretty strong drugs. He doesn't deserve it.

There aren't any chairs. Maria sits, none too gingerly, on the end of the bed. Rumlow winces a little, but she doesn't particularly care.

Resting her clipboard on her lap, she looks over at him and decides not to beat around the bush. "I've been speaking with Bucky. He told me that you once witnessed something extremely abnormal—more abnormal than erasing a man's mind so that he'll do what you tell him to. That event is what I've come to discuss."

"Lot of strange things happening lately," His reply is slow to come, slightly slurred. "Want to be a little more specific?" She doesn't, and he knows it.

"I know how a morphine drip works and I swear to God I  _will_ turn yours off—"

"All right, all right. So. He remembers the Pembry mission, huh?"

Pembry. A church. That rings a bell. That would have been...she'll figure out exact dates later. But that means Rumlow knew for a  _while_ , about Pierce and his little Snowflake. That means he returned Bucky to HYDRA and continued using him for  _years_ to follow. Not only did she overlook Rumlow as a HYDRA parasite, but that whole time he  _knew_ about Pierce.

The morphine drip is seriously too good for him. "Tell me what happened."

He grimaces a little. "I swear to God, we had no fucking—me and Jack, that is—one minute he was like he usually was, all quiet, doing exactly what we told him to. And then suddenly he's freaking out. Crying. Hiding behind Jack, saying how he's not supposed to be there, telling us Daddy's gonna punish him or something. I mean. He's gotta be pretty close to three hundred pounds and we've both seen what he can do, and he was—freaking the hell out. At that point we were just focused on calming him down."

Maria thinks back to Bucky's smirk as he recalled the Pembry mission. She's wondering now if that might have been at least partially bravado. She's also wondering how much self-restraint she has left to refrain from inflicting some form of torture or another. Rumlow's dealt out enough of it to have earned a stint on the receiving end, surely.

And after listening to hours worth of Bucky's therapy tapes, it isn't as though she would lack for ideas.

"All right. Basics first. I've got someone examining the chair that was used to erase his memories. Did you ever see it put to use?"

"Yeah."

"How many times?"  _I swear to God, if you say too many to count..._  

"Eight."

"Describe the procedure, slowly. I'm writing it down as you speak."

Now Rumlow looks truly uncomfortable, and Maria can guess why. Bucky doesn't like to talk about the chair. When she had Dr. Richards discuss it with him, he'd been visibly distressed at the very sight of the machine. While talking them through the wiping procedure, he'd recalled that it had hurt and he hadn't been able to keep from screaming. The heavy metal restraints spoke for themselves.

She knows that he was taught to endure a great deal more pain than she can imagine, silent and blank-faced, assessing his own physical state in a calm and objective manner. If the wiping procedure could elicit screams from the Soldier, if he'd been unable to hold still for the technicians, then she doesn't want to consider how agonizing it must have been.

And Rumlow was familiar with the Soldier. That must have occurred to him as well.

"It didn't take long. They'd put him in the chair, lock him down so he wouldn't lash out when it started. And then a minute later they'd have him out, and he wouldn't remember a thing. There was only one time..." he trails off.

"What?" This is likely to incense her further, but still, she has to ask.

"He recognized Rogers," Rumlow says bluntly, "Kept asking about "the man on the bridge". Pierce couldn't convince him that Rogers wasn't anyone important, so he had to have him wiped. And for a moment there? From the look on the Soldier's face? I thought someone might lose a hand. He looked like he might start biting." His eyes are on her now, gauging her reaction. "Fucking feral." 

And when Steve hears Rumlow saying these things it might not be Bucky who tears off one or two of his appendages. "We'll go over that later. First, tell me about the Pembry mission. Did he explain to you the reason for his regressed mental state?" 

Another grimace. "Yeah. Oh, yeah. In graphic detail. And drew us pictures."

Pushing that image aside, she says, "Tell me about that mission. From the beginning, and  _slowly._ "

She puts aside all feelings in favor of frantically writing as he talks, and he becomes absorbed in the telling. For a while their animosity wanes. He's the storyteller, and she's an avid listener. She focuses on furthering the defense, incorporating this cache of information, and aside from a few clarifying questions and a request to slow down, she sits back and lets Rumlow speak.

Until they reach the bedtime story. 

"Jack was telling him The Three Little Pigs, but the Soldier—the kid—stopped him. Said he hadn't heard that one. There was one story he did know," Rumlow frowns, "and we didn't realize what it meant at the time, but apparently Pierce always told him this one....always told him about a little boy with a friend that made trouble for everyone. The boy lost his arm, it was the friend's fault. And then—"

Rumlow swallows. He looks uncomfortable again. "His—the boy's dad got him a new arm and the boy helped him save the world, to make him proud, he said."

Maria is filled with disgust. "That's the most masturbatory thing I've heard in my entire life."

"Don't I know it. Pierce didn't even _give_ him the arm."

"Stroking his own ego at Bucky's expense. That's screwed up beyond belief." She's not so much speaking to Rumlow as herself, once again thinking of all the years she worked with Pierce, assimilating this new vileness with the image of the humble and benevolent Secretary that he'd so skillfully upheld. Repellant and disgusting.

"Believe me, we were thinking the same thing," Rumlow mutters, staring at the ceiling, "Pierce always creeped me out a little after that." 

"But you still returned Bucky to him," She sounds accusing now, she  _is_ accusing. "And to the chair, and—"

"You think we could have done anything else? You know what he was like after going too long without a wipe?"

"A _person_?" She raises an eyebrow.

"Every so often he'd get confused and upset. He'd lash out. You know what he's capable of, and believe me, we knew it too. So even if HYDRA hadn't found us, and they _would_ have found us, what exactly do you think we could have done? Gone on the run with a confused and violent three-hundred-pound _kid_  with extensive combat training? Think that would've worked out well?"

"There are  _many_  other ways you could have—" she stops herself before she strays outside the boundaries of 'professional'. She's incensed and Rumlow's available, so he's a viable candidate for the outlet for the shock and anger and betrayal roiling inside her these past months. But that could turn to vulnerability, and she's not going to give that to him.

She pretends to check her phone for the time. "I have a lot of material to organize, so unless there's anything else I should know..."

"Leaving already? God, Hill, I feel so used."

He's smirking, but his eyes are a little wild under the drugged glaze. She should let this go, but she cannot shake the visual of Bucky screaming in the chair, writhing against unyielding metal restraints. She rises abruptly.

"Do you really want to talk about using people, Rumlow?" 

Being unable to stand seems to diminish him; he relied on his stature to intimidate and command. She'd been expecting a sardonic retort, but he genuinely doesn't have one. His eyes return to the ceiling.

"I'll call you when I have this information organized. Then we'll discuss what we'll present to the court."

Perhaps the drugs are behind his next words, because this is the closest she's heard Rumlow come to vulnerability; the way he speaks, it sounds almost as though he is seeking absolution. "You can hate me all you want, Hill. I believed in the cause I was serving and I wasn't going to sabotage it. Not because one man was being a pervert. I worked for my beliefs and I still would. You understand that."

"Tell it to Bucky," she says on her way out the door. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Turns out I'm not great at writing Rumlow. But he is on a lot of drugs, so if you find him to be a little out of character, just chalk it up to that, I guess.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The defense is coming together nicely, but it's taken its toll on Maria.
> 
> The events of the past year hit her harder than she'd care to admit.

Maria isn’t entirely sure why she’s still doing this.

Her compulsion to be thorough comprises a great deal of her skill. It has seen her through years’ worth of projects and missions. It accounts for her accuracy, her tendency to catch things that others might overlook, her reputation for trustworthiness and competence.

Still, it’s more often a curse than a blessing.

For example, she’s fairly certain she’s fit everything into her plan for the defense. She needs to work with the order of the dates and inform everyone when they will testify, and today she has another meeting scheduled with the Worths to discuss what would have been Miriam's portion of the testimony. But for the most part, she thinks she’s gathered all the evidence she can extract from these recordings. She could, in all likelihood, leave off listening to the rest of them.

But she has to be sure. So, while she writes notes and rearranges papers and crosses tasks off her to-do list, she has that horror playing like background music.

She hears that childish voice most nights before she falls asleep. She hears it in moments of silence. An earnest imitation of youthful innocence, reciting all the things he has to do for Daddy. Save the world and make him proud. Keep still while he rinses the blood from his Snowflake's hair. Always, always hold his mouth just right so that Daddy won't feel his teeth, keeping his eyes fixed on Daddy's from the moment he begins to kneel down. 

Bucky is five right from the beginning of this tape.

“How have you been sleeping lately?”

“I sleep pretty much every night. Just, a couple times when I get worried I can’t. If someone reads me stories that really helps. An’ Bucky Bear, too, ‘cause he...I guess makes sure I’m safe.”

She feels a twinge, recalling the way he gripped the bear, rocking, referring to it as _him_. Maria wishes she could just let him have the damn thing, but it’s more than a matter of ridicule or judgment. She worries that it would be viewed as some form of manipulation, some bizarre strategic maneuver for sympathy. There’d been a fair degree of fallout of that nature over the photo of Bucky with Santa Claus (and who the hell had thought it was a good idea to post _that_ online?) and that lets Maria know exactly what would be said about the bear.

“That’s good, James. That’s good to hear. I have to ask, though—how many nights do you sleep _through_?”

“Um...not...not a lot of them. There are still bad dreams...an’...an’ then I’m too scared after.”

“And are you still having accidents?”

“...Yeah,” he admits quietly.

“From what you’ve said before, it sounds like that’s what’s really been keeping you from getting enough rest.” She speaks very gently now; as a child he almost always becomes agitated or upset when the bedwetting is brought up.

As an adult, Maria has noticed, he always manages to direct the conversation elsewhere.

“I know. I know it is. I’m _trying_ to stop it, really I am, I just don’t know how!” He’s quickly become distressed.

Her heart had ached in that way it’s been doing a lot recently during a session in which it came up that Bucky once fell asleep in Steve’s bed and wet himself there. The magnitude of the humiliation of such a moment had pained her badly enough on his behalf, but then he had expressed deep disgust with himself and a heartbreaking level of gratitude over the fact that Daddy hadn’t punished him. As if Steve would ever do anything like what Bucky’s describing in the tapes.

Not for the first time, her mind hits her with a reminder of of the way she once viewed Pierce. That so many others had admired the man doesn’t do much to restore her confidence in her own judgment.

Miriam had asked Bucky why he would expect to be punished for having an accident. He’d struggled with his words for a few seconds before repeating the line Maria’s heard before—good boys don’t wet the bed. When Miriam asked if that was something Pierce had told him, he’d begun crying and then hyperventilating, apologizing.

The litany of Bucky’s apologies is another refrain constantly playing in her head.

The office is silent; Maria’s paused the tape player without realizing it. She’s done that increasingly frequently in the past couple days—she'll become conscious of the quiet several minutes after the audio has stopped. She realizes that this means her brain is attempting to protect itself when it needs a break from processing this onslaught of atrocities, and is grateful that tomorrow there will be no more tapes.

But right now she has to get this done. Listlessly, she jabs the  _play_ button.

“It’s all right, James. We’ve talked about this, remember? No one is angry with you. Bedwetting is something that happens to lots of kids, and even sometimes to grown-ups.”

“Especially when someone’s been in a situation that’s painful, or frightening,” Cornelius adds, “It’s often a reaction to trauma or stress.”

“We know you can’t help it. No one expects you to be able to stop. But at some point, I think there has to be a solution to help you get enough rest.” A pause. “James, do you want to take a minute? It’s okay to ask if you need to.”

He must have nodded, because a lapse ensues. Maria can tell Bucky’s crying, hard. His breathing is heavy and shaky and he’s sniffling steadily. Her heart is doing that squeezing thing again. The sensation is very familiar by this point.

Miriam’s voice breaks the silence once Bucky’s breathing has leveled out. “James? Are you feeling okay to continue?” A pause. “It’s okay if you’d rather drop this for now, but at some—”

“I—can we? Talk about something else? _Please_.”

"All right, James. I'm hearing that you're asking for something you need, and that's good, okay? Good job on that. I know it can be hard for you to ask for things when you need them."

A knock at her door. That’ll be the Worths. Maria pauses the tape and slides it out, marking it with a red dot. 

Maria almost doesn't recognize them. Miriam's dark hair is elaborately braided and held back with a blue ribbon. She’s wearing a matching blue dress. It’s jarring to see her dressed formally. Miriam gravitates toward casual and cheerful attire, loose hair, and minimal makeup; she looks like a different person entirely.

Behind her, Cornelius is wearing a suit, and Maria wonders what event they have come from, what it’s like to have a life not completely and entirely entwined with one’s work. Once all the legal business has been settled, she’d like to take a vacation, but she hasn’t even glanced over a list of potential destinations. She’s aware that the verdict might be ‘guilty’ and that if it is, she isn’t going anywhere.

Whatever the outcome of this trial may be, she’ll be sticking around to deal with it until she knows that Bucky is okay.

"Good afternoon, Agent Hill," Cornelius greets her.

"The most recent one," Miriam says without preamble, offering a cassette tape. Maria had requested to be kept up-to-date on the recordings in case new revelations were forthcoming.

“Thank you, Dr. Worth.” She worries that a situation may arise in which she won’t know how to address one of the Worths. Individually she refers to each of them with the title ‘Dr. Worth’. Two Dr. Worths have the potential to confuse the conversation.

Given everything that’s going on, it’s a ridiculous thing to preoccupy herself with, but it worries her nonetheless.

Once everyone is seated, Maria reaches for the tape that she had marked with a post-it note. “This tape contains the second excerpt I’d like to use for the defense. Once you hear it, I’ll explain my reasoning. I’d appreciate any input you may have.”

Maria moves the tape along. She’s grown skilled at timing the skips and the rewinds to find exactly the right segment.

“Is it completely fucked up if I sometimes miss it?” Bucky asks quietly. Maria can tell from their faces that they both recognize this session. Cornelius’s hand rises to his glasses.

“Miss what, specifically?”

Silence.

“Are you talking about HYDRA, or your individual time with Pierce?”

“I...no. Or, I mean—I’d never want to go back to them. I wouldn’t want to be that, ever again. Or hurt Steve. I mean...it was easier not to feel anything...didn’t have to remember...trust me, I know what they were and what they did. I was fucking _there._  I _know_. And Da—Pierce—no. _Never fucking again_.” A pause. A deep, shaking breath. “Okay. But—is it completely fucked up that even with him, I sometimes wish I—I mean, I’ve got Steve, and the others and that’s a million times better—in every _possible_ way. So why would I ever miss—sometimes I just—” Again with the shaky breathing.

“James, it’s all right to feel however you feel.”

More deep breaths are audible on the tape.

“So what are you trying to say?” Cornelius prompts.

“I fucking _hated_ him, all right? I hated his fucked-up fucking _games_ and I hated that he made me...made me _want_ them and...and want...want _him_. Even now I still hate that I...I thought I...loved him, and sometimes I think I still…and besides, even if it wasn’t completely fucking sick, it’s just...it’s not fair to Steve. He’s been...he’s done more for me than anyone could have ever expected. I can’t…why am I like this?” Disgust saturates his tone, “It would kill him if he knew I sometimes still wanted—I can’t. I can’t—” A pause. “Can’t.”

The Worths must have a fair amount of practice at keeping their faces free of any reaction, but Cornelius is spinning his glasses more rapidly than she’s ever seen.

“You can’t talk about this now, or you can’t talk about it with Steve?”

“Either—both.” Highly agitated now. “I just, I can’t say it. How can I say it? No one would—Steve wouldn’t understand. _I_ don’t understand.” His voice is wavering a little. Maria recognizes it easily by now—she’s seen it happen. Sometimes the regression sneaks up on him when he’s upset.

Miriam must have heard it, too, because it’s her voice on the tape now, soothing.

“It’s natural to feel confusion. Even loneliness.”

“I’m not lonely.” There it is, the shift in his voice, “I’m just—sometimes I miss him.”

Maria pauses the tape. “I’m guessing you recognize this excerpt.” Cornelius nods and Miriam answers, “Yes.”

“All right. I chose this one for a reason. I realize that it contains what’s perhaps not the best message to deliver to the court. However, it not only demonstrates exactly how Bucky was abused, but the level of manipulation and confusion he experienced as a result of said abuse. And how much he hates it when given the opportunity to express an opinion of his own.”

Maria hits the _skip_ button a couple times, allowing quick segments to play.

“Sometimes he was really nice to me…” skip. “...told bedtime stories an’ brushed my hair…” a few skips. “He wanted me to be his little boy. An’ he always said he loved me, an’ I was such a good boy, his, um, his perfect little snowflake, an’ saving the world for him. I—”

“There.” Maria pauses the tape, “I definitely want the jury to hear that. The manipulation and deception come through very clearly there. It’s apparent that Pierce took advantage of a very vulnerable state of mind. They won’t be seeing the Soldier after they hear this—not as they’ve envisioned him thus far.”

Miriam frowns. “I agree that this would give the impression you want, but I’d be hesitant to use that one. Couldn’t it lead the prosecution to say that he’s harboring a desire to return to HYDRA?”

“There are other recordings that really would be preferable, but far less concise. I’ll only be able to play a few of these, and the following segment kills a few birds with one stone. But you're right, and the nature of that discussion means that we’ll have to think very carefully on how we want to portray the subject matter. We'll also have to be prepared to refute any such arguments from the prosecution.”

She can tell by their hesitation that neither of them relishes this prospect, and she understands. Both the tape and the following discussion will expose a great deal of painful subject matter that Bucky clearly finds quite shameful. But he probably wouldn’t enjoy sitting through five or six tape excerpts even if she could fit them in, and she can't guarantee that he'd find those any more pleasant.

Maria decides to dispense with the titles and address the doctors by name. “Miriam, it's my understanding that you'd prefer not to testify in court, and that Cornelius is willing to cover all of the material from Bucky’s therapy sessions?”

“Yes, in the interest of prioritizing James’s sense of safety in his younger mindset.”

“All right, then, this tape will be played last so that the negative effects of the damage inflicted by HYDRA will already be established. As I’ve mentioned, this testimony directly follows the explanation of the chair so that it will drive that point home. But it will also segue into the specific abuses that Bucky suffered under Pierce, because Pierce took advantage of an already fragile and devastated mind and I want that made clear.”

Nods from both of the Worths.

“So, Cornelius, I’m going to have you clarify for the court why you brought a child psychologist in to assist you with Bucky’s therapy. Following that, you’ll have to explain the regression and why it occurs, and then we'll play the tape as evidence. I think any specific discussion on manipulation or abuse should follow that.”

Cornelius looks thoughtful. “If my testimony is broken up into two parts, I think would be best to do likewise with my explanations of the diagnoses. Some result from HYDRA and the damage they inflicted. Others are directly related to Pierce.” He frowns. “And while I’ll state that James is diagnosed with dissociative disorder not otherwise specified, I’d prefer to expand on that statement. You’re aware that it’s a very atypical form of the diagnosis—formed under very atypical circumstances—but until the topics of James’s regression and the reasons behind it are introduced, the jury won’t know that.”

“I’ll make a note of it,” Maria says, “I also wanted to mention that I had to research battered person syndrome. When I did, I had to delve a bit to get past a certain stereotype, of which I’m sure you’re aware. It’s not a given that everyone will know what you mean. I’d advise you to explain it in terms that clearly apply to Bucky so that those listening will make the connection.”

“Neil, you may want to emphasize the belief of being under constant observation.” Miriam advises Cornelius.

“I think it would absolutely benefit the defense to focus on that point. It will be mentioned multiple times, but it bears repeating. The jury should be reminded that, regardless of the accuracy of Bucky’s perception, for him there was no thought of escape and no hope of maintaining an idea of his own.”

Miriam is nodding. “Make it a main point that James was not only made incapable of the thought of disobedience to his abusers, but would never have believed it to be possible. To him they were everything, they could do anything. They were promising to tear the world apart and rule over what remained, and it would never have occurred to him that they couldn't.”

“I’ll be certain to include that.”

“There’s also the fact that the manner in which Pierce instilled obedience left James incapable of lying or carrying out deception while in his regressed mindset, which occupied a fair amount of his waking time with HYDRA,” Miriam continues.

_(“But I can’t lie to Daddy. I really can’t lie to him.”_

_“What do you think would happen if you did?”_

_“I don’t know, I just can’t.”)_

"Agent Hill?" Miriam's voice jolts her back to her office. Maria realizes she's been staring blankly at the tape player. For how long, she isn't quite sure, but it's been long enough that the Worths have taken notice. 

"My apologies. I'm usually more attentive, it's been a taxing week."

Cornelius leans forward, resting his hands on his knees. "These audiotapes do contain graphic and often disturbing—"

Maria is shaking her head. "It isn't the tapes themselves, it’s Pierce. Before Project Insight, I worked with him, and I saw him almost daily." She hates the sudden look of realization on their faces, but she can't seem to stop herself from speaking.

"It was enough of a shock when he turned out to be HYDRA—along with many others I’d worked with daily, I might add—and then I find out he’d been doing _this_ —” Maria taps a fingernail against the nearest lockbox, “—to Bucky. Pierce was—”

She shakes her head. She’s gone far from professional, but emotionally, she is completely exhausted. She's been turning last year's sudden upheaval over and over in her mind for months, but has never allowed herself to express her internal unease.

Part of that is due to that her loss of trust in the motivations of people in general. There are some she'd have once confided in. Let down her calm, collected guise and shared in the disbelief of all this. They'd have strengthened and supported one another until they all stood once again on solid ground.

But so many of those people had turned out to be part of the problem. 

Now all the betrayal and self-doubt and shock she’s kept hidden behind her polished and unruffled demeanor are tumbling out, unbidden. “—he gave off a sense of goodwill. And competence, and—” _kindness_ “—trustworthiness. So many of us admired him, even sought to emulate him. Myself included,” she admits, “And all those years, he was…”

She shakes her head and taps the lockbox again, a bit ashamed of how much of herself she is revealing. She hadn’t meant to, and that unsettles her. She’s always poised and calm and in control—at least, she’s always careful to appear so. Her job has required it of her and it’s become a large part of her persona. That's as it should be; she shouldn't have slipped like this. 

But neither Cornelius nor Miriam tries to stop her. Miriam looks at her, intent and unwavering, and Cornelius’s expression is one of mild interest. He taps his glasses against his palm.

Ironically, it’s the openness in their faces, the realization that they will allow her to say what she will, that ends up cutting her off, mentally kicking herself. There’s a time and a place for vulnerability and this isn’t it. The Worths are not  _her_ therapists; today they're here for Bucky.

So she doesn’t end up saying what she was thinking. She doesn’t say that it’s not fair that the public has chosen the wrong scapegoat, but it’s also not surprising.

It's also not surprising that Bucky believes it. That he hates himself more deeply than they ever could.

Pierce was unbelievably clever. He’d tried to drag the world down into hell behind a mask of beneficence and humanitarianism, and they’d all trusted him implicitly. His image had been carefully crafted so that the world would view him exactly as he wanted it to.

And if he managed that with Fury, with herself...if he managed that on a daily basis with the most discerning agents of SHIELD... _  
_

_(“—I can’t lie to Daddy—”_

_“—He_ did _love me! He_ did _, he said I was special an’ his—his little snowflake—said he was proud of me for helping save the world—”_

_“—I’m the worst thing there ever was in the entire—ever—”_

_“—I’m just—sometimes I miss him.”)_

...then Bucky never stood a chance. Not with Pierce. Not in the public eye. And not with himself. 

And she wishes she could tell him that. She wishes she could say to him that it's absolutely not his fault, none of it. From the beginning, he simply didn't stand a chance in all of this. But he wouldn't believe her if she said so. 

Maria doesn’t say any of that. She glosses over the moment the best she can and proceeds to consult Miriam on how best to provide support for Bucky in the courtroom.

*

Once the Worths have left, Maria finishes listening through the last of the January tapes in case there’s anything she can still use. She’s thinking she’ll probably just stick with the two excerpts she’s chosen. There’s not much time to go over any more with Cornelius. Still, her habit to be thorough reminds her that she doesn’t want to miss a key point that could decide the case for Bucky. She could probably fit a third clip in, if she had to.

She’s reached the tape that Miriam gave her earlier. Once this one is over, she’s done. She's been listening to it while folding and unfolding a scrap of paper in her hands. Cornelius had lingered after Miriam left the room and told her that he knew of several colleagues she might find helpful if she'd ever consider speaking with someone. Then he'd offered her the paper—a list of potential therapists and their phone numbers.

She'd nearly bristled, then thought once again about the shock of discovering that she'd worked alongside and almost certainly aided HYDRA in its efforts for many years. That a great part of her life had been a lie, that she hadn't once spotted it, that she's now just a little too conscious of the fact that she can never really know another person. 

She'd nodded and thanked him for his concern. "I'll consider it, Dr. Worth."

“The trial is coming up very soon, James,” says Miriam on the tape.

“I know,” Bucky mutters, sounding dejected and despondent and fully an adult. More and more often Miriam talks to him even when he is not a child.

“I just want you to know that if you’d like to be prepared ahead of time, at least for what’s going to be covered from your therapy sessions, we’d be willing to go over what we plan to—”

“Can’t. Can’t think about it too much or I just get...too stressed to do anything.”

“Do you think you’re going to be all right during the trial?”

“I don’t know, I really don’t.” Bucky exhales sharply, his tolerance for the subject plainly running low.

“I just need to make sure you’re aware that a lot of the things that are going to be said might be very personal to you. We want to make sure you’re okay with what—”

“I’m honestly probably not. But it’ll be the same for the whole trial. Look, I get it. You can tell them whatever you have to. I really—I get it, I do. Just say what you have to and—and please don’t ask me to think about this right now.” 

Maria pauses the tape, weight heavy in her chest. Miriam had been right; a great deal of the therapy material is _very_ personal. Why does the whole world have to listen in on this? Why can’t they just back off and let the jury make their call?

She doesn’t want to consider how Bucky will feel when the court starts reacting to these tapes. Or that she’s told him he’ll have to sit quietly in the courtroom for hours, listening and watching those reactions.

Perhaps she’ll visit the Tower once the defense has been finalized, just to offer to let him know what’s going to happen. From the sound of things, he’ll almost certainly decline.

In fact, she hopes he will, because if she gets all the material together and he has a problem with something she plans to use, she might have to re-do a great deal of what she’s already ironed out.

And if that means revisiting any more of those tapes…

Maria dreads the thought. Still, Bucky’s been deceived enough. She decides that she’ll at least grant him the option to be forewarned as to what’s to come.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two days before the trial begins, Maria concludes her preparations.
> 
> The stress is hitting Bucky hard, and it hasn't been easy on her either.

Of all the people to volunteer to appear in court.

Maria had asked if any of the Avengers would consider testifying as a character witness. She’d already known who would jump at the chance.

But it can’t be Steve. She’s been keeping tabs on the media and sources seem to agree, not entirely inaccurately, that Captain America has a Bucky-sized blind spot. They fear he’s been deceived, a concept potentially useful to the prosecution. Anecdotes about Bucky back in the 1940’s won’t exactly prove helpful. They also won’t contribute much to Bucky’s image _now_. 

Furthermore, Maria would prefer Steve to be seated near Bucky for the entire duration of trial. If he can’t have his bear then she wants Steve to be nearby. His presence will help Bucky to hold it together, and he’ll be able to monitor how Bucky is handling the pressure. If the Soldier—or, more likely, the child—makes an appearance, Steve will be the most capable of intervening before Bucky does something noticeably inappropriate.

Pepper could have testified. That’s what Maria had been hoping for. She gave that interview a few months back and it had gone over about as well as Maria could have expected it to. It can’t be said that she’s biased, having been introduced to Bucky less than a year ago. She’s known to be intelligent and competent, and she handles herself well in the public eye.

Maria had also considered Bruce, Sam, and Clint. She’d held a conference call to consult the Avengers as to who would be the most convincing witness.

But as soon as she’d cut off the diatribe from a rather disgruntled Steve, Tony had spoken up, “I actually might have something that can help.”

“You would testify in court?” Maria had asked.

“Sure, why not?”

It was said flippantly, but Maria can think of a few reasons why not. She’s familiar with what inevitably ensues once Tony gets in front of a crowd. Or a camera. Or people asking questions. During the trial, there will be all three.

But he’s the one who’d asked her to defend Bucky in the first place, and she knows he’s serious about protecting him, so she’s willing to at least see what he has to offer.

Or she _would_ be, if he actually _showed up_.

She’s been waiting for about twenty minutes in this conference room, entertaining herself by asking random trivia of JARVIS while he—it?—assures her that Tony is, in fact, on his way to meet with her.

The room is far too spacious for two people, and seems as though it has never been used. The table is wide enough and long enough that a two-lane road could be easily constructed upon it, and it's ringed by a multitude of empty chairs. The air smells vaguely of disinfectant and carpet shampoo, but nothing else.

So long as JARVIS is assuring her that she should stay and that Tony will be with her momentarily, she figures she might as well finish looking over her evidence.

She’s down to a briefcase full of what she calls the ‘flotsam and jetsam’ material. Most recently she has acquired a sheaf of clumsy crayon drawings, each one covered in post-its containing notes from various doctors. Apparently, some of the drawings contain signs of sexual abuse and of fear—she is supposed to sort out which ones are most viable as evidence.

The majority of of these drawings feature humanoid figures, many of which are overlaid with scribbles, usually heavily concentrated on one arm. Others are of misproportioned houses and other seemingly random things. A few are clearly meant to be the sun, with bright yellow rays and wide smiley faces. The design on Steve’s shield makes an appearance here and there. One is what looks like a blue rabbit, swirled over in red.

She grimaces at that, remembering Pierce and the bunny.

She’s examining another scribbled-arm drawing when Tony’s voice comes from behind her. “Really hates that thing, doesn’t he?”

Maria looks up. “You’re late.”

“That arm is _stunning_. It’s...it’s _extravagantly_ magnificent. It’s as singularly complex as a living body, it’s perpetually compatible as a component of one. I would _propose_ to whoever designed that thing. _If_ they weren’t evil, and most likely dead.” He sits, clutching a mug of coffee in one hand and rapidly twisting strands of wire in the other. “And he hates it.”

“You know why he does,” Maria says.

“I know he’s tried to get it _off_. I’ve taken a look at it. It’d be a major pain in the ass to get the thing on and off of him _with_ actual tools, but he didn’t care about precision, or the finer points of the mechanisms...or basic human safety. He tried to take it the direct way. That whole no-blades thing we’ve got going on? That’s why that started.” The wires twist around and around his fingers, reminding Maria of Cornelius with his glasses.

She searches her briefcase for spare paper. “Slow down. I need to write down what you’re saying.”

“You probably know this by now, but he wasn’t always doing as well as he is,” Tony continues, making no effort to slow himself, “Those first couple weeks weren’t great. His head was all over the place. Half the time he didn’t seem to know where he was, the other half he didn’t know what he was supposed to be _doing_. Lots of confusion. Not so great with the whole _communication_ thing. So we had no idea he was going to do this. Actually, we had no idea what was going on in his head at all at that point.”

He’s now as serious as Maria has ever seen him, staring down at the wire coiled around his fingers. It’s beginning to shape up into a frame model, some type of engine, she thinks.

“All I knew was that all of a sudden, JARVIS is telling us he’s alone in the lab, trying to kill himself.”

“When was this? And who is _us_ , who else witnessed this?” Maria scribbles frantically to keep up.

“I was with Pepper. But we weren’t going to try and get the knife away on our own. We got Steve and Bruce to come with us.”

“When was this, again?”

“This was a week after he’d been in the Tower. In that week he’d barely talked, just the basics. Yes, no, sorry when he thought he’d upset someone, that’s about it. Like I said, we had no idea this was coming. Until that point I didn’t know he was anything _but_ the Winter Soldier. Okay, you won’t ever hear me say it again, but it is, conceivably, _possible_ for me to be wrong.” Tony draws a new coil of wire from his pocket.

“Noted. What happened?”

“Well, he might not have been actively trying to _die_ , but I’m not sure he cared if he lived. He wanted that arm off. Had it clamped in a vice, sawing at the shoulder. Going pretty rough. The arm’s heavy as hell, so there’s some reinforcement under the skin, basically keeping his body in one piece. Like I said, it’s a very complex system. Someone _really_ knew what they were doing—”

“You can pontificate on the mechanism later, Tony. Please—”

“Right, fine, no one appreciates the finer points of body modification. Point is, he was really tearing at himself, trying to get under the plating. Lots of skin and blood and screws. Fair amount of tears. It was—he just wanted it _gone_.”

She can’t help envisioning it. She’s heard, somewhere, that the human pinky finger is no tougher than a carrot—that one could easily bite through it, but their brain will prevent them from doing so.

How badly separated from your own instincts would you have to be to saw a blade through your arm?

“Slow down, please,” is all she says. Her wrist is cramping.

“Thing is,” Tony goes on, “that was probably the most clearheaded I’d seen him at that point. He knew us, and knew he was in the Tower—as soon as he saw us he said he was sorry for getting blood on my workbench. Just sitting there, crying and sawing away at himself, apologizing for bleeding on my bench.”

Of course he apologized for getting blood on the bench.

Maria’s noticed that Bucky has a tendency to think that he is leaving behind an insidious taint on things. On people. Whatever he thinks he has defiled feels permanently soiled to him, dirtiness remaining even after any tangible mess has been removed.

He’s said many times that he’s afraid he is sullying Steve irreparably, that Steve should cast him aside for his own sake.

“Once we started trying to talk to him, though, it was hysterics. He could barely talk for crying, but there were apologies. For pretty much everything that ever happened, ever.”

She’s heard him when he panics; apologies are his go-to response, his safety. She can imagine how that must have gone.

“He kept up like that until Steve kind of couldn’t take it anymore—I hadn’t really had time to think it through, but I suppose seeing your best friend trying to cut their arm off might stress you out a little. He told Bucky to stop and Bucky just _froze_. Looking up at him, scared and doing whatever he said, easy as that. It was fairly horrible, if you let yourself imagine the implications. I kind of did.”

Maria isn’t surprised by that—in the earliest therapy tapes, Bucky didn’t have a lot of his memories, and he lacked context for any sort of healthy human relationship. He’d misinterpreted a fair amount based on the scattered remnants his mind had retained, and at first had perceived Steve as a new master—someone to take on Pierce’s role.

Maria wonders, a little tiredly, how many layers of horror this case can possibly contain.

“Once we realized he’d do what Steve said, it was fine. Steve got him to drop the knife. Bruce did the rest. Got him calmed down, talked him through the whole patching-up process. And then, a couple hours later, we figured he’d settled down enough to talk, so we asked him why he did it. And he just looked at us, all confused—he didn’t remember what he did.” Tony tips the rest of his coffee back. “Got scared, though. Didn’t even _know_ what he did and he was still convinced he was gonna get punished for it. That was a rough ride for Steve. Mind you, that was _before_ the ‘he’s five sometimes’ thing came up.”

“Tony,” Maria says without looking up from her notes, “You’re describing some really horrible things and you’re going way too fast for me to sort it out on paper. I swear to God, if you don’t slow the hell down, I’m telling Pepper to cut you off for caffeine.”

“Right, right.” He’s quiet for a moment and then he says, “Up until then, he’d barely said a word to me. If I only thought of him as the Soldier then...he did, you know, kill my parents. Then came into my house, first thing he did was try to strangle me, didn’t talk to me for a week. Oh. Wait. No, he did say ‘sorry’. Once. But not for the strangling thing.”

“He tried to _strangle_ you?” Another story she hasn't heard. She hopes it won't come up during the proceedings. So very many people have probably been tempted to strangle Tony at one point or another, but that really won't look good.

“To be fair, I did call him Snowflake. Must’ve messed with his head.”

Oh.

“Won’t be saying that ever again.”

And neither will she.

“I only really got it, what they did to him, when he apologized for my parents.” Tony’s gaze is fixed on a point somewhere above her head. “I don’t even know who told him he killed them, I never brought it up and he didn’t remember. Apologized for not remembering, actually.”

Whatever he’s assembling is constructing itself more rapidly than ever.

“That’s when it kinda hit me—it wasn’t even a little bit by his choice.” The wire-model engine goes skidding across the table. “All right, that’s it, we’re good? Done? I’m starving.”

“Just one thing,” she says to his retreating back, “In the courtroom, when you’re up, in reference to past instances of—”

“Don’t be yourself. Way ahead of you. I don’t actually want him arrested either.” Tony pauses in the doorway, “I’d kinda miss having him around the lab. Kid thinks my wayward robots are the coolest thing since Velcro sneakers. Plus we can’t have Captain America beating up a juror with the shield. It’s bad publicity, according to Pepper.”

“Thank you, Tony. You’ve been very helpful,” Maria tells him.

“Never threaten my caffeine supply again.” He vanishes from the doorway.

She looks over her notes, understanding why Tony volunteered as a witness. His testimony will be very compelling—far more compelling than if Bruce or Pepper or even Steve himself told the story. The jury will hear about Bucky admitting to killing Tony's parents. They'll also hear Tony standing by him, strongly asserting his innocence.

She also understands Tony's sudden departure and thinks that he deserves some time to caffeinate the hell out of his brain.

This completes the list of people she'd needed to consult. She'll have to translate her notes into questions and finish selecting the drawings, but other than that, Maria’s plans are basically finalized. There’s only one thing left to do.

*

This is clearly a bad time.

Intending to offer Bucky some preparation for what’s coming, Maria had gone to the dining room as soon as she’d finished organizing. She’d thought to give him the opportunity to brace himself, at least a little, for exactly what she’s planning to reveal on national TV. Steve, as well, because he’s going to hear it too and a great deal of it concerns him.

But Bucky had been five when she got there and had been unable or unwilling to return to adulthood for even ten minutes. He’d looked wary and drawn from the moment she’d seen him. As soon as she’d offered to go over her plans, he'd shaken his head frantically and buried his face in his bear.

It’s clear he’s not leaving this mindset anytime soon.

“We can discuss this at another time, if you’d prefer that,” Maria offers, “We don’t have to, but I wanted you to know you have that option.” Bucky just starts rocking, his arms tense and tight on the bear, beginning to whimper. Whatever’s happening in his head right now, it's putting him far beyond the ability to speak.

Steve nudges him up and sits cross-legged in the chair, pulling Bucky back down into his lap. He enfolds his friend in his arms and murmurs in his ear, and Bucky quiets down. After a minute, he nods without lifting his head.

“I think we need to be done with the legal stuff,” Steve says, looking back up at her.

It occurs to her that today is a Thursday and that means that Bucky just had therapy this morning. That he looks so exhausted because he woke himself sobbing last night, wet and terrified and ashamed, and stayed awake until dawn trying to banish the nightmares. That he can’t leave the table until he’s finished eating and his plate is still half-full, and he may be struggling with lunch right up until dinnertime, when the table will be laden with food once again. That this trial's been looming larger and larger and it's making him panic. He can't think about the fact that it begins two days from now.

She's still worried about his reaction to the court proceedings, but plainly the dread is already too much for him to handle. She abandons her professional demeanor and leans over the two of them, squeezing Bucky’s shoulder. He looks up at her, wild-eyed.

“Okay, Bucky, no more. We’re done, okay? I promise.” She tries to make her tone soothing, though it doesn’t come naturally. How do people talk to children as though it comes naturally?

Bucky’s eyes are shiny and he’s blinking too hard.

“Listen. I’m so sorry the government is doing this.  It’s not fair to you, but I promise we'll get you through it. You should not be the scapegoat for everything that’s happened. We won’t let them do that to you.”

“That's right,” Steve says against the top of Bucky’s head, “You hear that? You’re not going to prison, Buck. I’m not letting it happen.”

Maria knows he means it. If the jury did announce Bucky guilty, Steve would probably fight his way past all of them to take Bucky into hiding, or do something equally stupid and reckless.

She’s pretty sure she wouldn’t even try to stop him.

In fact, she might have possibly—naturally, for hypothetical purposes only—secretly researched the best places one might go into hiding from the United States government.

For hypothetical purposes only.

But that’s a concern for a later time.

Their words seem to register, albeit a little late, and Bucky squeezes his eyes shut and whispers, “Thank you.”

And then his flesh hand darts to her own and latches on tightly. She stiffens, but doesn’t pull away. She squeezes back just as tight. “It’s gonna be okay,” she finds herself promising, thinking about the upcoming trial and knowing that Bucky will absolutely not find it okay.

For a while he doesn’t let go of her hand; maybe he can’t. She doesn’t want to be the one to pull away first, so she drags over a chair with her foot and sits down beside them.

Stories. Fairy tales help him more than anything, don’t they? That’s something she’s heard him say frequently in the recordings. But any reference to those sessions or her time spent listening to them seems unwise right now.

“Did you ever hear about the time…” She tries to think of a child-appropriate and non-triggering story about one of the Avengers. Something that might make Bucky smile. “Did you ever hear about what Clint and Natasha did when we sent them to Florida?”

That does seem to distract him from his distress a little. He looks at her uncertainly.

“Clint always tells us stories but Tasha sometimes says he tells them wrong.”

“Well, I’m not sure if Clint has told you this one, but those two ended up causing some pretty big trouble in Disney World.”

His eyes go round. “Really?”

“Well, it wasn’t entirely their fault. There were some truly bizarre circumstances, but they didn’t hear the end of that for a while.”

“Tasha got in trouble in _Disney World_?”

“Wait till you hear.” She relishes telling this story more than she’d admit. “I couldn’t even be upset with them, I was trying so hard not to laugh.”

And that’s how she ends up spending the afternoon in the Tower, telling Bucky comical stories about each of the Avengers while Steve coaxes him to keep eating.

She even finds herself smiling now and again, recalling events that she’s certain will earn her a fair amount of disgruntlement when Bucky relays these tales to the rest of the Avengers. It’s worth it, though, to make him laugh, after the many, many hours she has spent listening to him cry.

And the stories do help. Bucky has calmed down considerably and he manages to clear his plate. In fact, when Natasha comes in and insists on having sorbet, Bucky accepts a small dish of that as well.

(He eats it as a substitute; he can’t have ice cream. Pierce made him lick it from his hands, sometimes his body. It always made him feel sick. Even the thought of ice cream makes him nauseous now.)

Bucky asks, “Tasha, did you really get arrested in Magic Kingdom?” And Natasha turns to glare at Maria.

But that makes Bucky grin, and Natasha’s gaze softens. Maria decides that at some point Natasha and Clint are going to receive Mickey Mouse ears or some such gift, because Bucky needs more things to laugh about.

That’s _if_ he’s judged innocent. And if he isn’t sent to a long-term psychiatric facility, which is a likely possibility. Though not ideal, that would be highly preferable to prison, or going into hiding from the government. But regardless of Bucky’s reaction, she knows that Steve would take it badly if he was sent away.

“We didn’t get _arrested_ ,” Natasha protests, bringing her back to the present. Unlike Bucky, her 'young' voice isn’t all that much different from her regular one. It’s a bit higher and louder with less subtleties in the inflections, but that’s it. “We got out first. Anyway, that wasn't _our_ fault.”

Once Natasha is over her outrage—most of which is really staged for Bucky’s amusement—she turns out to be a fair contributor to Maria’s stories. They spend the afternoon reminiscing over various SHIELD members. Every so often one of them will stop suddenly and redirect their story, and the others will know that they'd been about to mention a former friend that had turned out to be HYDRA. But for the most part they are at ease, smiling, having a good time.

Maria hadn’t realized how long she’s been here until Pepper appears in the doorway to announce that dinner will be ready in fifteen minutes. She invites Maria to stay and Maria’s first impulse is to decline, to politely excuse herself, but this is the most she’s enjoyed herself in a while.

“Thank you, I would love to.”

Once everyone’s seated around the table—Bucky still in Steve’s lap and ignoring his plate in favor of a thick yellow smoothie—Maria stops telling stories and observes what seems to have become the standard mealtime dynamic in the Tower.

Bucky doesn’t exactly fit on Steve’s lap, so Steve has to maneuver bites around his head. He doesn’t seem to mind. The bear is sits on the table in front of them, its arms wrapped around a honey bottle. Maria doesn’t question it.

Periodically Tony will start up a rapid-fire burst of monologue in an attempt to be the center of attention. Fortunately for his ego, Bucky frequently poses questions for him or Bruce to answer.

Nobody but Maria seems to catch Tasha stealthily launching baby carrots across the table with her fork. Some are aimed at Bucky—one lands in his smoothie, and he mock-glares at her. Others are directed at Clint, and though he’s supposed to be an adult, Maria does observe a carrot zooming seemingly out of nowhere and hitting Tasha in the nose.

She’s honestly not sure why the Disney World incident had surprised her.

Periodically, Pepper leans over to gesture at Bucky’s plate, encouraging him to eat. “Sweetie, you do need to have something that’s actually food,” she reminds him quietly. A piece of carrot bounces off her arm and she looks up, searching. Tasha is suddenly deep in conversation with Bruce. Bucky smirks a little and reaches for his fork.

Pepper keeps looking suspiciously around the table for the perpetrator of the errant vegetables. She catches Clint's eye and raises an eyebrow. He hastily dismantles the tiny catapult he'd been constructing with his spoon.

Bucky seems to have become enamored with Maria’s stories. He keeps requesting repeats. As predicted, this earns her some glares from around the table, but soon enough everyone has joined her in trying to good-naturedly embarrass one another as much as possible.

“You delayed us by an _hour_ to prove some stupid—”

“I ate the whole pizza, though. You _saw_ me eat the whole pizza.”

“You are the _only_ person who thinks that’s an accomplishment.”

“The hell it’s not an accomplishment, I felt like a _champion_.”

“For ten minutes, yes. Then you spent the rest of the day laying in the back of the car. As I recall.”

Maria had forgotten how it felt to be relaxed, to laugh until her stomach ached. When did she last take a day to enjoy herself? She doesn't want to leave, and remains at the table long after dessert has been finished.

Eventually, though, she does have to excuse herself. The trial commences in two days and she still has some work left. There's always work left. And at some point she does plan to look into a name or two from the list Cornelius gave her. 

When she rises to leave, Bucky waves goodbye from Steve's lap, and Maria’s good mood wavers. He really does appear childlike—round-eyed, trusting, and so painfully unprepared for what he’ll be enduring two days from now.

But in those two days he'll be sheltered and looked after, possibly even happy. She's glad he can have that, at least.

She makes herself smile and wave back, and then she's out the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay in posting this chapter. This semester is somewhat kicking my ass. *desperately awaits summer*
> 
> Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed.


End file.
